Marketing is facing the greatest changes since the birth of the internet, or perhaps since the birth of TV advertising. Our marketing megaphone has been passed to the consumer. So marketing needs to change its game - and fast!

Wednesday, 30 September 2009

It's not often that I bestow blessings on colleagues but in this case I have to make an exception. I have to confess, I've been particularly rubbish at maintaining my blog over the past few months. I don't do this blog on behalf of my employer, and am not driven by publishing deadlines or other events that force me to write. I simply do it because I'm passionate about B2B marketing and am genuinely interested in making a contribution to improving the professionalism of B2B marketing.

My only excuse is that I've been busy - pathetic, I know, but there you go. I'm deploying a marketing automation system at the moment and that's keeping me busy. And when I have a few spare moments I have to confess I prefer to choose to spend them with my family rather than with my laptop. But I've recommitted myself to spending more time posting content.

Today I spoke at an event chaired by Joel Harrison and B2B Marketing Magazine. I'll link to the content in the next couple of days when Joel publishes it. I was covering 10 ways to improve your marketing campaigns. Item 10 was about keeping yourself fresh with new insight. RSS feeds are great but better still is clever people you respect doing the filtering for you. Hence my gratitude to Steve Woods. Steve is CTO at Eloqua - I had the good fortune to meet him at an event in London earlier in the year. His blog on "Digital Body Language" is always thought provoking and I've learned a great deal from him. Best of all, he's started providing a digest of good content that he's come across from various luminaries in this space. His latest Marketing Automation Weekly Wrap-Up contains links to new content from Laura Ramos at Forrester, Sirius Decisions and Brian Carroll - three individuals/organisations from whom I've learned a great deal. So thank you Steve - I'll continue to use your blog as a useful filter on what's new.

Monday, 28 September 2009

Over on ClickDocuments blog - Connect the Docs there's a good collection of insights from a number of B2B Marketing luminaries (Brian Carrroll, Mac McIntosh, to name two) on some of the most common B2B Content marketing mistakes to be avoided. The key ones listed are

Avoid the One-Off Send Syndrome

Avoid Me, Me, Me Marketing!

Not being relevant to your audience

Not cariing about your audience

Not finding multiple uses for your content

Missing the opportunity to create content specific to buyer personas

Some nice examples in here, but it all points to the same issue - nurturing a relationship with a potential client does NOT equate to sending them a brochure, or asking regularly if they're ready to buy yet. Simple.

Pete Jakob

Resident in the UK, I've nearly 30 years experience in marketing and sales in the IT industry working with IBM. In September 2012 I left to set up my own consultancy - Purple Salix. My prime motivation for initiating this Blog is to share ideas about practical ways of improving the ROI on B2B marketing campaigns. It seems to me that our industry's issue is NOT that we are unable to generate interest - the challenge is that we are unsuccessful at developing that into sales. At the same time the Marketing profession (along with professions associated with it) is going to have to re-invent itself as the "empowered consumer" becomes a more dominant force in the marketplace. We've lost control - DEAL WITH IT!